Pollution

Industrial

Industrial pollution
• Metro Vancouver has 6 wood product plants, 2 oil refineries, about 100 food processing plants, almost 50 metal and surface finishing plants and 13 chemical companies discharging wastewater with chemicals toxic to fish into the sewage system.
• Some older pulp mills discharge toxic organochlorine compounds that can cause immune system damage, liver disfunction, impaired reproduction, birth defects and cancer.
• A target for zero discharge of pulp mill organochlorines by 2002 has now been axed by the provincial government. Waste discharge regulations do not take into account the cumulative impact of the hundreds of toxic waste outfalls flowing directly into the Fraser River, the most important salmon river in Canada.